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Steven Lay, 35, of Lebanon, pleaded guilty last month to involuntary manslaughter, corrupting another with drugs, tampering with evidence and two counts of child endangering, each a misdemeanor of the first degree.

Officials said he bought heroin on April 19 from a dealer in Middletown, which he knew contained Fetanyl.

Lay and his girlfriend, Shawna Mitchell, 34, snorted the drugs in his bedroom, leaving the couple’s 1-year-old child and Mitchell’s 10-year-old autistic child in the family room, prosecutors said.

Lay passed out in the bathroom and awoke to find Mitchell’s unconscious body slumped over in the hallway. She was declared dead at the scene.

Prosecutors said Lay flushed drugs in the toilet and hid paraphernalia under a mattress before calling 911.

In court, Lay told the judge he deserves to be punished for causing her death.

The case underscores the wickedness, pain and casualties of addiction.

“I'll never get to hug her. I'll never get to hear her laugh or see her play with her children. I don't get to see her again ever,” Mark Mitchell, Shawna's father, said in court.

During sentencing, the judge called this an example of a tragedy that is ripping families apart everywhere.

“129 times a day someone dies of an overdose in this country,” Judge Robert Peeler said.

Noting that the current drug laws are aimed at dealers rather than users, Peeler sentenced Lay on Wednesday to seven years in prison, with a possibility of parole in five years.